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The greatest obstacle small business operators face in adopting business process management (BPM) is themselves. That factor could account for the underutilization of BPM by small businesses -- and the reason BPM vendors have targeted the small business sector as a huge potential market. Of course, the abundant offerings of vendors can be confusing, and the trade jargon (SOA, Saas, ROI) can be daunting. Still, the reluctance of small firms to fully utilize BPM often comes down to one thing: attitude...

Last week's big news was that Apple pushed up its Snow Leopard release by a month to provide a 60-day buffer between it and Microsoft's biggest launch of the decade. Apple can't match either Microsoft's resources or price, but the feat of snagging an unchallenged 60 days during the back-to-school and early holiday shopping season points to Apple's greatest advantage: Its marketing leader is also its CEO. Microsoft is fielding its best marketing team ever for the Windows 7 launch, led by Kathleen Hall, who was hired out of a leading advertising agency -- but she isn't the CEO. ...

The idea was to provide some clarity on the issue of searches of computers and other digital devices when travelers enter the U.S. However, while Thursday's announcement of new Department of Homeland Security policies for border inspections was greeted as a good first step by some, they didn't completely quiet privacy rights groups The new rules he...

Intel has boosted its sales forecast for Q3, providing an injection of confidence to the tech sector, where it's viewed as an industry bellwether Intel now expects revenue for the third quarter to be US$9 billion, plus or minus $200 million, compared with the previous range of $8.5 billion, plus or minus $400 million. Wall Street had been expecting...

Congratulations, patient cheapskates: You've won the waiting game. Now you can get a well-equipped video game system for a somewhat reasonable price. The two most-advanced consoles on the market have dropped in price over the last few days, just in time for all of that back-to-school homework to get ignored. The Sony PlayStation 3 was first, final...

The audience at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle was full of geeks, and its members would probably have been proud to identify themselves as such. After all, it was the ninth Gnomedex conference, the annual gathering of tech bloggers, business types, private tech enthusiasts -- anybody and everybody who has a fascination with technology's impact on society, culture and media...

Blockbuster and Samsung recently announced that Blockbuster OnDemand will be available on select connected HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and home theater systems starting in the fall of 2009. Samsung will offer connected Blu-ray players and home theater systems with both the Netflix and Blockbuster online services; however, announcements from Blockbuster indicate that Blockbuster OnDemand will have "preferred positioning" on the Blu-ray devices...

Why is Google promoting two open source operating systems that can both be run on netbooks -- Android and Chrome? Is this part of a larger strategy, where Google will direct the two along different paths -- Chrome for netbooks and Android for the smartphone?...

President Obama's inability to fill even half of his major political appointments is in the news this week, but the appointments he's already made are causing some in Silicon Valley to question whether they supported the right candidate. The president chose non-Silicon-Valley candidates for the nation's two major technology posts In March, Obama ap...

The Food and Drug Administration is looking into reports that orlistat, a drug used to control obesity, might have played a role in 32 cases of liver injury that occurred between 1998 and 2008. The FDA is also investigating an undisclosed number of other cases of liver damage that might be related to the drug Orlistat works by inhibiting the absorp...

Facebook will be overhauling its privacy policy following an investigation by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, which concluded that the social networking site's policies posed significant risks. The changes will affect Facebook's entire global user base. The investigation was originally prompted by a complaint from a privacy advoc...

Back to school time is upon us, but it's not just students who will soon be facing homework. Thanks to Thursday's announcement that Microsoft is cutting the price of its high-end Xbox 360 Elite video game console from US$399 to $299 -- matching that of Sony's new PlayStation 3 Slim -- consumers will have to study up on which console now better fits their affordable entertainment needs in a down economy...

Nokia on Thursday announced the N900 smartphone, a mobile device running the Linux-based Maemo operating system that the company typically uses for its tablets The device runs a Mozilla-based browser and offers still and video photography, an FM radio and 3.5G and WLAN connectivity....

What's hot, and what's not? And how does an e-commerce concern turn it into cash? Knowing Internet trend patterns is not enough. Small e-commerce companies have to be able to act on the information they obtain in order to capitalize on it. When they do not move quickly enough, they may find themselves on the tail end of a petering-out fad....

The last 10 years has brought sea changes to the customer service industry from both operations and technology standpoints. Organizations have moved away from traditional domestic live phone support toward new technologies and business models such as interactive voice response (IVR), intelligent scripting and offshoring. E-commerce, in particular,...

Although the ultimate definition of "the cloud" remains elusive to vendors and end users alike, the cloud represents the next major paradigm shift in the IT industry and business computing. ...

Do you have a video that has the potential to really go viral, like the wedding entrance dance or David after the dentist? Post it on YouTube -- notonly for the notoriety, but also for the cold hard cash. At least that is the offer Google, YouTube's corporate parent, is extending to users The company is expanding its revenue-sharing YouTube Partner...

Google has pushed an update to its Maps application adding traffic data on surface streets The data will be drawn from GPS-enabled cellphones that are actively running the mobile version of Google's map app, the company said in a blog posting Tuesday....

If you are able to read one of novelist Patrick O'Brien's rousing naval adventures on Sony's new Daily Edition electronic book reader, then you will also participate in helping Sony send its own shot across the bow at Amazon and its popular Kindle reading device ...

With a seemingly endless supply of expert consultants and solutions on the market, many IT departments in critical infrastructure industries have made significant inroads in the past few years into becoming compliant, striking a balance between rigorous attention to regulatory chapter and verse, while still making time to support the critical projects and initiatives that keep the organization operating...